


Danaë Before The Wormhole

by gogollescent



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/pseuds/gogollescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira takes on Earth myth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Danaë Before The Wormhole

There was a human story about a woman who slept with a fall of golden rain. Jadzia told it to her while they were on a reconnaissance mission in the Gamma Quadrant; the locale was a planet which saw downpours twice per hour, as though scheduled, cracking torrentially out of the clouded sky. They’d made their landing several miles from the Jem’Hadar’s abandoned camp, just in case the Dominion left behind any security measures they didn’t know about—would that they had, and they could finally get a look at their sensors, but until they reached the base there was nothing to do but wade through jungle on foot. And talk about Terran gods. Kira didn’t approve.

“I think it’s romantic,” said Jadzia, pushing her hair out of her eyes with a slop of dislocated water. Kira hadn’t even known she had that much hair up in front, until the weight of the rain collapsed the soft puff into dripping sleekness. Dark tendrils cupped her spots and merged with them in color. “He broke up the misery. It's no fun sitting in a tower all day.”

“But he didn’t break her  _out_ ,” said Kira. “Besides, how good could—” She paused. Six years, and she still didn’t know how to talk to Dax about sex, although goodness knew they’d tried. “How much of a, a distraction could a little shower provide?” she finished weakly. Jadzia smiled at her, a little wicked, her usual edge blurred by the wetness of her face. 

“Maybe I should be asking you that,” she said. “Have you and Odo gotten past chocolate and security reports, or are you still planning the best way to next astonish and delight the Promenade? I recommend dancing, by the by. Gets the blood moving, and you won’t have to arrest yourselves for indecency afterwards.”

“We’ve gone dancing,” said Kira.

Jadzia gave a low whistle. Kira nudged her in the ribs with her elbow, and almost sent her tripping into the glossy underbrush, which would probably have swallowed her whole. “Oof,” said Jadzia, raising her arm to feel the bruise, like a chef sampling a broth, or an oracle reading from bones; and then, before Kira could apologize: “So, third base?”

“I… have no idea what that means,” said Kira.

“Never mind,” said Jadzia. “Another little tidbit of human culture I’ve picked up in my years as a Starfleet officer.”

“Third base,” mused Kira. “Bases. Now I’m remembering. Isn’t that something to do with Captain Sisko’s ball?”

Jadzia changed the subject with remarkable speed, which had been what Kira was angling for. But it was true that at the time she and Odo hadn’t done more than kiss on the couch in her quarters, or in the shadow of the brushed-bronze arches in his. Practice shapes, he’d reminded her, putting expert fingers to the base of her skull, and she’d puzzled over how he could find abstract sculpture a challenge when he had mastered hands.

A year later, Jadzia was dead, and Kira thought she understood it after all. She’d had Odo every way she wanted him, by then, except forever. He was going with the other changeling; or she thought he was going. Then he came back. They said things, meaningful things, and he rose out of her hands in a fiery mist, long streamers of billowing gold. Simpler was harder. Simpler was diffusion, and surrender, and a long letting go. 

That night they lay tangled up on her bunk and talked about being fog. His face was turned into her hand, his even nose cutting across the base of her thumb, and his smoothed-down cheek seemed to press out the creases in her palm, to wash clean all the tracts of her future. Seeing him as he had been, a cloud and a shine, made her wonder if one day he would be able to occupy her as the Prophet had in the pure moment before Winn betrayed them. Was it blasphemous? To imagine breathing him out like heat? Odo was someone’s god. Not hers, and he never would be, but she could feel him, already, power beneath the skin.

His eyes were shut. He could see with any part of his body, but she thought he was probably blind, just now. She folded her thumb over to press the tip to his lashes, and he smiled a young, tender smile, although the little growl from his throat was an old man’s growl. So gruff, for someone who could turn into laser confetti. His slicked-back hair, beige and glossy, made her think of Jadzia that day in the Gamma Quadrant, how irritated she had looked and damp. It wasn’t easy to burn. Maybe once Kira had been able, almost as much as he was, to turn herself into a flame—but he had been moving away from his uncertainty and humanoid fear, and she was getting deeper in it every day. Regretful, she kissed his low forehead. His unlined skin was warm against her lips. 


End file.
